Notebook

Penned by Jared Flood

Hello and welcome! I'm a knitter, photographer, designer and the creative director at Brooklyn Tweed. I use this notebook as a space to record inspiration and write about my creative work both inside and outside of BT. Thanks for reading, and don't be a stranger—I love hearing from you!

Cisco

March 12, 2009

There has been a gaggle of baby knitting going on over here – a very important little person is coming into the world and I’ve made it my personal mission to instill a high wool tolerance, nay, dependence on the little one.

Also – baby stuff can make anyone feel like a super knitter – little projects that give you the similar types of construction satisfaction (sometimes) as larger garments, take about a tenth of the time, and give you an excuse to play with all those beautiful yarns you were saving for something special but didn’t have enough of to make anything substantial with. Works for me!

Now, Cisco. Here’s a project that is almost too cute for it’s own good. You know, the project that makes you giggle as you work because it’s so darned cute… and because you know that any little head when wrapped in little ears like this will be ten times more likely to induce cute-baby-sighs.

The original pattern is written for various brightly colored yarns, striped together. I opted for a more subtle self-striping look. As I always say, when the yarn can do the work for you – just let it. And when you have the chance to put a little handspun to good use (with garter stitch) – do it.

I had just enough handspun left over from this hat to make a miniature – and the big bonus? The original hat was made for the baby mama… meaning yes, we have a matchy-matchy scenario on our hands. I love it. [See a photo of the un-knit handspun here]

There are some fun and clever little construction details on this – like the formation of the ears, mitered forehead point, and shaped back-of-head portion. All pieces are knit flat, but picked up and worked directly off of one another, so no seaming is involved (brownie points).

Aside from the difference in yarn choices, I only made a few small modifications to the existing pattern. I omitted the stockinette center peak of the forehead – I liked the look better keeping it in garter, and rather than using YO increased, I worked raised bar increases to omit holes. I trimmed the whole thing in a solid contrasting color – one ridge of garter stitch with a bind off in purl from the RS. I left 3 live stitches at the base of each earflap as I was binding off and made them into I-cord. I made the I-cord just long enough to tie, but not so long as to be a dangling nuisance for parent or child.

I thought the ears, being the absolute best part of the little piece, needed a little extra pop so I worked a crochet chain in the darker solid around each ear to emphasize their shape. I think they look much better with it than they did before.

What a little gem of a pattern this is – highly recommended and definitely worthy of getting of the regular-baby-knits list if you ask me! Thanks to the lovely ladies of the Berocco DT for another winner!